MLB WINTER MEETINGS

December 5, 2023

Brandon Hyde

Baltimore Orioles

Press Conference

Q. After winning 101 games, best record in American League, what do you think is the one thing that's needed now that was missing to take the next step?

BRANDON HYDE: I thought our guys gained incredible, valuable experience last year. A lot of things we did for the first time. Obviously we made the postseason, but playing with a lead late in the season, being able to hold on to a lead, winning over 100 games, winning our division, it's a big deal.

For us it's now taking that next step and being able to advance in postseason. I think our guys are going to come in really, really hungry. Just talking to some of them briefly throughout the off-season, so far our guys are going to be really driven this year. And it was a great experience for us last year, but we want to go further.

Q. When we talked to you at the very end of the season, you mentioned how it stung a lot, obviously, the postseason loss. Has that eased at all, or is it still as raw as it was?

BRANDON HYDE: No, I mean, there's -- it hasn't eased for me. I think that there's a lot of disappointment. And I'm really proud of our season, I don't want to take that for granted. To win our division, to win over a hundred games, to have the individual performances and team performances that we had, it says a lot about our roster and our guys and how we have some really good players. But you do that, and then you fall short like we did, that takes a while to go away. So it hasn't gone away for me yet.

Q. When you look at Gunnar and Adley, obviously they have come so far in their careers already, but what is next for each of them developmentally? What do they need to work on to improve on?

BRANDON HYDE: I just think it's getting more and more experience. I think Adley, he's already one of the premier catchers in the game. What he can do offensively and defensively, it's incredibly special. Now it's just continuing to pile up at-bats, more innings behind the plate, stay on the same path he's on right now.

With Gunnar, Gunnar's so young and being Rookie of the Year, it's going to -- the league is very aware of how dangerous he is at the plate, but also the athleticism he shows on defense, the way he played two positions at a high level. They've just got to stay on the path they're on. They are so driven. These guys have incredible makeup. They're extremely hard working, and they're going to -- I know that they're itching to get better every day.

Q. Are you confident that John Means is going to come to camp, and you think he's ready for a full season?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, I think if we would have had another few weeks or a month, I think John would have been fine. It was just an unfortunate -- it got sore there in that last start before the postseason.

Q. Would you like to add a guy with closing experience?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, I think that would -- losing Felix is a big loss for us and he was such an important part of our team. And I thought we managed it extremely well, the way our guys picked up the pieces for him the last month of the season. I thought our guys threw outstanding out of the bullpen.

Also, you want to have more depth and get more talented down in the bullpen, that would be great, and I think a veteran presence would definitely be helpful.

Q. Can Means give you a full season, could he go 150 after what happened last year?

BRANDON HYDE: We'll see, missing a full year and a half, but the way he came back and was throwing the ball, those first three or four starts, it looked like 2019 John Means again. So I don't know how you ever know how somebody's going to bounce back off of injury, but he was really good, and I think I expect him to be healthy and ready to have a good full season.

Q. Right now what do you envision for Jordan Westburg? Do you see him getting more regular at-bats at mainly second or just going second, third?

BRANDON HYDE: That's one thing that we have is so much versatility with so many of our guys that I think that we'll wait to see how this off-season plays out, what our roster looks like in Spring Training.

Then it's nice to have so many movable pieces and talented guys, at that, that the way he can play third base, he can play second base, he can play short if you need it. But we have quite a few guys like that. So I think it's going to be a mix and match. If the season started tomorrow, I think that there would be -- he would be moving back and forth between two positions. We'll see where we are in April.

Q. Mike told us yesterday that the market is really competitive, not going to force anything that isn't a good deal for the organization or make sense roster-wise. If this off-season goes, comes and goes and there aren't any significant additions, do you feel like you guys can still have what it takes to repeat as division champions?

BRANDON HYDE: I do. I think we're really talented, and I think our guys are going to continue to get better. I think we have two young starters that they're only going to get better. With Kyle and Grayson, and Dean really established himself as a really good starter last year. Tyler Wells was our best starter in the first half last year. And then it was lights out of the bullpen for us late in the year.

So excited about the talent we have on the mound, and we're really, really athletic position player-wise. And so we bring this -- if we started tomorrow with what we have right now, I would be more than happy with.

Q. With Frazier (indiscernible) likely gone in free agency, did you think you guys need to replace him with a veteran, or are the young -- or are you comfortable not having veterans among position players?

BRANDON HYDE: I think in a perfect world you would like to have some veteran presence, but our guys are starting to turn into some veteran presence now. These guys are now in their fifth and sixth year. They have had a lot of experiences now, highs and lows, losing team to a 100-win team.

We're not as young as we used to be with some of our core guys, which is weird to say, but some of our guys are turning into good veteran guys. And they have been led well too these last couple years with some of the quality guys that we brought in here.

Q. When you have such a great season and then it ends so quickly, how do you view those three games with Texas? Do you try to take something from that series that can -- that you need to improve on, or do you just say, oh, it was a bad couple days?

BRANDON HYDE: No, I think it was a bad few days. I didn't -- I was a little -- I think we weren't playing -- from my opinion, we weren't playing our best baseball a couple weeks going into the postseason, then we had that long layoff, and it just didn't -- we lost that close game in the first, and then we were out of the game kind of early in the next two.

We got beat by the World Series champion team that was playing extremely well. They went to Tampa before us and beat them handily for two games and then played really well in our series and continued to play well the next couple weeks.

So I think it was -- for our guys to experience that atmosphere, I think that's going to be great going forward. But I don't look at it as a whole lot of positives, honestly, because it just doesn't sit well with how it ended.

Q. Is there anything -- obviously hard to take any positives from the three games, but things that you think you need to improve as a team because of those games, because of what you saw in that series?

BRANDON HYDE: No, I think it's just postseason experience a little bit. That's all I'll take out of that.

Q. What's it like when you look around the AL East and you know that, yeah, you guys won the division, but every team is really good and they're all retooling this off-season, it's not going to -- they're not just going to hand you another division title?

BRANDON HYDE: That's for sure. That's one thing about our division is there's going to be four other teams always that have World Series expectations. So that's who you're competing with year in and year out. Now there's five teams. So that feels good to be a part of the group. And now coming off winning the division, those other teams are going to come in, they're going to get better this off-season, and we got to play good baseball next year.

Q. You're going into your sixth year here. I know you like to say, well, I have much better players than I did in 2020, but do you feel like you're -- do you feel like you're a better manager now than you were, and what have you learned in that time?

BRANDON HYDE: I think, like a player, I think experiences help, going through -- I think this is going to be my 12th or 13th year in the Big Leagues and sixth year managing. I think just paying attention nightly and just trying to get better every single year, every single -- really every day, analyzing myself and decisions I've made and talking it over with people, I think you just continue to improve. You're trying to improve always.

So, yeah, I'm sure I've grown a lot in six years, hopefully continue to grow.

Q. Traditionally player development, bringing up even a top prospect (indiscernible) Jackson's got just 20 games. We all know the level of talent we're talking about. Does your player development experience tell you there are exceptions to the rule and you may be ready to find out if he's one of them?

BRANDON HYDE: Well, I've never seen a kid that young go that fast, have that much success this fast, especially at a high level like Triple-A for 19. Stanton, I had him in Double-A at 19, and then he repeated and went to Double-A at 20 and came up to the Big Leagues at the halfway point at 20. But, Jackson, the numbers he's put up throughout his short Minor League career are -- especially for his age is really incredible.

So I think we're going to give him as much looks as possible in Spring Training, give him every opportunity. We obviously really believe in his talent. He's going to have a huge future and a great career. Whether it's going to be breaking with us or not, I can't answer that right now, but we're going to give him an opportunity.

Q. Do you generally err on the side of caution and say you might not give him another 30, 40 games but then sometimes there might be a kid who says I'm ready?

BRANDON HYDE: Yeah, I think when you're making those decisions, it's never a hundred percent that you're making -- you're not fully confident that you're making the right choice. I think you're looking at a lot of things, whether it's makeup, is he ready physically, ready mentally to handle the Major League life.

I think with Jackson's case there's the -- growing up in a Major League clubhouse has obviously been a huge help for him. He's not going to be overwhelmed from the -- what playing in the Big Leagues is like because he's been in that environment before, and that's a big deal.

But the Major Leagues is a lot different than the Minor Leagues, and the Major Leagues is a lot different than Triple-A. So whether we feel like he's ready to handle that or not, we'll see.

Q. This past season you mixed and matched your infield a lot, you talked about the value that that brought to the club. The organization tendered contracts to both Jorge and Ramón, got a bunch of top prospects at Triple-A who play infield. Do you expect that to be the case in terms of mixing and matching your infield, maybe not having a set guy at each spot every day? Do you expect that to be the case next year and moving forward?

BRANDON HYDE: I think we'll wait and see what our roster looks like in Spring Training. I don't know that for sure. I think if the season started tomorrow, I would probably be doing the same thing I did toward the end of the season last year with matching up guys the best way I can.

But we'll see what the roster looks like.

Q. When it comes to trades, how do you view -- there's always talk about the off-season and trades. And with this farm system and how many top prospects there are, some of them you've seen and come up, for you, when you've seen these players and you've seen them develop, maybe seen them play, is it hard for you to say that we're getting a guy that I'll like but we're also losing some guys I like? How do you view that stuff where you're losing players that you like but you're getting somebody new?

BRANDON HYDE: Well, I think that you got to balance winning and development with -- right now we're trying to win. So I like a lot of our players, but whoever is going to help us win the most for me, that's the deciding factor right now. We're in win mode. And if we feel like a certain player is going to help us win more than the other, then that's the decision we make.